Chapter 27 – Choices (Part 2)

October 1, 2004 = Friday

~Damsel~

I sat at the bar of the Round, while one of my bartenders popped my nose back in place with a spoon. Most everyone left was upstairs repairing the damage the sheriff's deputies had done when they stormed the place looking for Nines. Most of it was superficial, thankfully, but I was going to be out several grand on finding new tables and chairs and a few pieces of paneling. The bathrooms up there could go without for the most part, not that most of my clientele needed to use them anyway. Mostly just the ghouls who came in for a drink, provided they could find the blessed things during their drunk.

"This might hurt a bit," Steve said as he pushed hard and my nose crunched back into place with a yell. If those damn fool Cammies didn't believe that, then she'd never be trusted. I was just glad that we gave such a good performance, even if it did ruin my white tank top with my own blood.

"Geezus, Steve," I said, wincing as my eyes watered. "I know people think I'm the toughest bitch in town, but my nose is tender."

"Relax, Damsel," he said as he threw the spoon into the wash basin. "If you don't get it set right, it'll heal wrong and your pretty face will be ruined. And I don't want Michele breaking my hands because I let your pretty face get ruined."

I smirked at that. "Least I can expect you to have my back. Think you can keep them working upstairs? I need to see Michele for a loan."

"Them?" he said, looking up as if he could look through the floorboards. "They're pushovers. Not a backbone in the entire lot. All talk and no show."

If only he knew, I thought as I slipped off the bar-stool and went into my office, locking the door behind me. Within the privacy of my office, I stripped off my clothes, including my underwear and socks to get dressed in fancier clothes. Not that I needed to, but Michele loved her refinement and if I showed up looking like a hobo I would get treated like one.

We Anarchs couldn't afford anymore gaps in our defense. Michele's defection hadn't gone the way it was intended, she was supposed to just walk away from it all and take up with the Camarilla as a primogen, which was her right as the oldest and most powerful of our clan. Even Isaac didn't have the same power base as she did. But where Isaac built his empire solely in the movie industry, Michele built hers on the arts and music industry, with rare strays into Sci-Fi and fantasy movies that Isaac thought tasteless and without merit. Money didn't buy all that much in kindred circles, it was the pull that mattered, and no one had pull like some of those music stars. To many people, they were more out there since they toured the country and performed for people live. Movie stars were rarely seen in public outside of their own select circles.

Thinking of Michele's defection had me thinking of Otto. He was the one who had led the charge to attack Michele and had paid dearly for it. Michele had wanted to keep her status as a double agent secret, and that led to misunderstandings, and Otto paid for it with his life. Michele's ghouls opened fire on him and his boys, and though Otto was fast enough to jump from his bike, he wasn't enough to stop Michele from pouncing him with her sword and cutting him to ribbons. The others had frenzied, attacking randomly and making themselves easy fodder for her blade and celerity.

In the end, the ruse had worked in her favor, and she had been taken in wholeheartedly by the Cammies after that. She even had Cammie witnesses that Otto had attacked first, thereby avoiding her own trial. Not that there wouldn't have been much of a problem with it anyway, as Lacroix was glad to be rid of the troublesome head of the Anarchs. Nines had stepped up to keep people from going off half-cocked, but more and more people defected every night, until now we barely had a riding pack.

Scowling, I looked in the mirror and surveyed my face. It didn't take me long to clean my healing nose of the dried blood and wash the makeup from my face. Drying off, I put on a fresh layer of makeup, adding lipstick, and eyeliner where I normally wouldn't. With my face on, I opened my wardrobe and pulled out my dress. It was a black sleeveless evening gown with a silver pattern on the bodice that hid my chest rather well. I stepped into the sumptuous gown, zipping it up. I then pulled out my black four inch heels that made the dress fall just at the right height. I opened up my jewelry box, pulling out my rhinestone necklace and slipping it around my neck. It hung right over my collarbone, filling the black sheer spot with a bit of color, then hung my rhinestone earrings from my ears to add more color to my dreary look.

Not my best look, but it was presentable in respectable circles. Lifting my patterned hem from the floor, I walked to the door, and picked up my clutch purse that held my license and some spare cash, and snatched my car keys from the hook. Heading outside, Steve gave me a wolf whistle in appreciation as I left out the back door and entered my Buick sedan. Once inside, I hit the interstate and went north to Beverly Hills.

Michele's place was tastefully lit, accentuating its gorgeous artwork and majestic fountain, even at night. I pulled up to the front door, leaving my car parked where all could see. Everyone knew I came here, though most people thought that was because my sire also lived here. We were still on speaking terms, though most of that was because of Michele not allowing me to be thrown to the wolves after he abandoned me two months after he sired me. She had given me a job, couriering messages around Hollywood, allowing me to grow my contacts over the years. It wasn't until several years later that I was able to start the Last Round, though at first it was meant to be a coffeehouse for my beatnik lifestyle. The problem was, by the time I had started the Round, the beatnik population had shrank so far that I wasn't able to keep it going as a coffeehouse.

That was when Otto had started using the place as a meeting area for the Anarchs. I had snagged a deal with Doctor Cuddy, buying packets of blood from their overstock and helping keep her flagging hospital open. With a supply of blood, I was now able to serve everyone that came through my door, charging a good price for blood and helping flagging members of all clans the chance to feed without feeding the beast. After that, I took to dividing the customers, with the upstairs reserved for kindred and the downstairs used by ghouls and kine. Eventually though, the kine stopped coming, but I kept my old post at the foot of the stairs that way I could keep the rowdier people under control when tempers flared.

That's actually how I got the handle Damsel the Den Mother. I usually helped everyone who came through my door slake their beast, feed and find companionship. After twenty plus years, it was hard to come to Michele's and be reminded that when I was born, even when I was first sired, I had a different name. Not that I hated it, but it wasn't me anymore. I wasn't the damsel in distress Otto took me for when he first set foot in the Round. I was the den mother who made even the biggest, baddest and meanest Brujah back down and cower. I guess after all the years of people calling me Damsel, no one even bothered with my real name anymore.

"Mademoiselle Swan," Remy said as she opened the door for me. "We did not expect you so soon after your most recent visit. Mon chère maîtresse is in the study," she said, her accent heavily laden in french.

I walked past her, heading through the foyer and down the hall to my right. Michele had built her home on the idea of her study being spy proof. It was solid, with no windows to the outside world and walls a foot thick to deafen any sound from leaving. The room itself was a testament to the nights of old, lit by soft candlelight that never flickered because no breeze could reach their flame. The walls housed some of the most rare artwork found outside of a museum and included paintings and sculptures. It was enough to make any Toreador swoon.

Any that was but me. I didn't swoon over artwork. I prefer a good speech in the vein of Martin Luther King Junior or Winston Churchhill. My sire is a gifted orator, that was what drew me to the square, but what drew him to me were my good looks and the fact that I was a cool hipster at the high tide of beatnik fashion. That was why my sire left me in the end, I fell out of fashion and he moved on.

"Elizabeth!" Michele said, taking small steps in her cream colored hobble skirt with a white top that accentuated her curves and wrapped her arms around me. "What brings you back so soon? Did something happen to Miss Flores?"

"I think she's having problems with her beast," I said, preferring to be direct on the issue. We didn't have much time, and I wanted to return home before I got stuck here. It wasn't bad, but just didn't feel right.

"Come and tell me everything," she said, leading me to the loveseat. We sat, and I was about to spill on Eliza when my sire walked in looking rather disheveled in a crumpled suit and with at least three tears in the jacket.

"For all that is unholy these nights," he started to say, only stopping when he saw me. "Elizabeth, my dear, what on earth are you doing here?"

"I had a development with Eliza and needed to ask Michele about it. What happened to you? Get caught in a blender?"

"Sabbat raid," he gruffed, going to sit opposite us in an armchair. "The savages raided me just after midnight. I was in the recording studio with my new group, the Fey, when they burst through my door."

"How bad?" Michele asked, putting a hand over her mouth to cover up how shocked she was.

"The studio," he said, hanging his head. "I was only able to salvage one of my girls. One of the feral beasts had tried to feed from her, but he lacked fangs and so ripped her throat out with his teeth. I ghouled her, trying to save her life, but she has yet to even speak. I left her with Remy who's trying to get her cleaned up."

"Les autres?" Michele breathed, asking about the other girls in the band. If he hadn't changed things, the band had five members in it, girls he had helped raise from their barely teens to be beautiful and artistic goddesses whom he would mold into the next hit band. It was one of the few times I'd seen him stick to something on a long term plan, but the Cammies wouldn't let him embrace willy nilly anymore. Maybe there was something to it after all.

"I tried. You know my thoughts on ghouls, but my blood couldn't save them all. I fed it to three, but Sarah and Cherise stopped breathing just after. Only Dianna continues to draw breath, though she hasn't uttered a sound since."

Michele muttered in french, and I couldn't help but feel bad for the girl. She probably didn't know a thing about kindred society, and was in shock from her near death experience. But, if her vocal cords had been ripped out, she'd forever be mute even though her skin would knit itself back together with flawless precision because we couldn't regenerate lost body parts. I honestly couldn't think of a worse fate for a singer.

"Yes, it's very tragic," he said, deflating into the chair. "Four years of work down thrown into the well of hostility."

"I'm sure you will be able to recreate your work in time, Monsieur Barker. You knew going into this that the kine are only temporary, anyway," she said soothingly, consoling the bastard. I didn't like what happened to his pet project, but I'd be damned if I gave him any consolation for ruining another set of lives.

"So, what is happening in the life of my childe?" he asked me, looking at me from where he sat in the chair. I swear I saw the man smirk at the thought I was in distress, and I had to repress the urge to slug him.

"Eliza has the problem, not me thankfully. She tried to make me a snack after the trial," I said, and Michele gasped.

"Surely not?" she said, taking my hand.

"Surely did," I responded back. "We were making out and suddenly she sinks her fangs into my neck like I was her personal blood doll!"

"Surely you jest? She attempted to diablerize you?" my sire asked, making light of what happened.

"Attempted? She put me in torpor!" I hissed at him. "She had an attack of conscious and left off just before she actually did kill me, thank god. Not that I had that much blood in me at the time, anyway."

"And it was during your affair that she fed from you?" Michele asked and I nodded.

"Just nuzzled right under my ear and fed. She's stronger than she looks, she never even wavered when I tried to resist, just kept right sucking from my jugular until I passed out," I told them. "She used a rabbit to bring me back, which is about the only reason I didn't stake the crazy bitch and leave her."

"That and I'd be severely upset," Michele said, dipping further into her French accent and adding an edge to her voice. She had the ability to be the softest person you ever met, but that was a ruse she used to make people underestimate her. "You know my plans for toppling this travesty of an empire Lacroix has wrought on us. Using Eliza to create unrest is crucial to my plans. I only wish I knew of her aptitude for politics, but there was nothing in her school file to indicate she wished to pursue such a career as such."

"I was amazed she made the prince back down in front of the whole kindred population," Barker added. "Are we sure she's not a Sabbat plant?"

"What do you mean?" Michele asked, losing the edge and dropping back to her feminine ways.

"This Andrei that Simeon warned us of," Barker started, leaning forward and putting his hands together in thought, "We know so little of him, except that he's a Tzimisce fleshcrafter. Simeon said he'd rally the packs, but what if there was another, one whom he didn't think would survive trial?"

"We already know she was embraced as a Sabbat," Michele said, cocking her head as she thought. "You suggest that Miss Flores is only a cover, that he killed the poor girl and they are using another, older kindred to masquerade as her? For what purpose? The poor girl is watched everywhere she goes."

"Yeah, but the idea does have merit," I said, hating to admit my sire might be right about anything. "She's too powerful, too good at being kindred."

"Oui, my contacts in the tower said she's worth millions already," Michele added.

"Within a week. How does she do it if she's not more knowledgeable than she seems?" Barker stated.

"I don't know," I said, thinking it over. "I think she really is just that clever. But she keeps making rookie mistakes."

"What else could there be?" he asked me.

"What if it's like the Ravnos we had in town a few years ago.. Right before he went crazy and we put him down?"

"I did hear the rumor that Zapathasura, their clan antediluvian, rose in Bangladesh the week before," Barker stated. "His death at the hands of the Kue-Jin, the hunters and the lupines done their clan under. There's not even a clan anymore."

"You think the Lasombra antediluvian has risen successfully?" Michele asked, a little shock to her voice. "That could go bad for the Camarilla, and the world as a whole."

"Maybe," Barker said, leaning back in his chair. "But the last word I ever heard on him during my time in London was that his own childe killed him and confined him to the Void."

"A place the Lasombra travel?" Michele asked him.

"Yes, that's how their elders travel. I've heard it said that they can travel from shadow to shadow regardless of how far it is, but to get there, they have to go through the Void," he told her, eyes closed in private thought.

"Is it possible that he could escape?" I asked, thinking of what Nines said about Eliza jumping behind Jack when he pulled his sawed-off on her.

"Not without a body," my sire told me, then his eyes jumped awake as he sat up in his chair. "You've seen something?"

"She jumped behind Jack in the Round after he pulled a gun on her. Just appeared behind him and mule-kicked him across the loft."

"Merde," Michele whispered.

"This could be a disaster. If she's fallen to their antediluvian, the ramifications to the city are undeniable!"

"Think of what a Methuselah could do to Lacroix, though," Michele said, and I looked at her.

"I would sooner plant a bough of holly in her heart," Barker groused, dropping his head into his cupped hands.

"Methuselah?" I asked, not familiar with the term.

"After a while, kindred evolve into something more than what we are now. The blood of kine will no longer sustain them, and they are driven by a powerful hunger," Michele explained. "I never thought you'd meet one here, where so few of the elders have moved and thought you safe from their predations, but a Methuselah is to kindred what we are to kine."

"They hunt us?" I said, not wanting to believe what I was hearing. "Wouldn't our blood bind them?"

"They aren't mere paltry beings that are so easily enslaved," Barker continued. "They feed from us like cattle. If they were so easily brought low, we wouldn't fear them so."

I was about to mouth back at my sire when I remembered that Eliza resisted my command to quack like a duck. She asked about aphasia, but I just thought she hadn't had enough of my blood. My shock must have shown on my face because both Barker and Michele started to cuss.

"She did something, I see it in your face," he said, rising to his feet.

"After she brought me back, I asked her to quack like a duck. I thought it would make it easier to do my job if I had a measure of control on her, but she didn't even acknowledge my command. I thought she just resisted it since she's only a stage one ghoul."

"Such a simple command should have been followed," Michele said, rising herself and moving to one of the bookshelves containing old tomes. "For her to so blatantly defy you is proof she is becoming something more," she added as she began to fiddle under the lip of a shelf.

"I think we might need to alert the city to the danger we all face," Barker said, moving beside Michele as she pulled something from its hidden spot on the bookshelf.

"Non," she said decisively, and I saw the edge form in the petite woman, the same edge I used to keep the Brujah in line. "We tell no one that Lasombra might have returned to kindred society. So help me Felix Barker, if you defy me on this I will not stay Remy's hand from your throat."

"You wouldn't dare!" he said, stepping back from a woman who was a good foot shorter than he was as if she were a deadly snake. I smirked at thinking Remy might finally get revenge for all the things Barker had subjected her to during his time with Michele. That slimy bastard definitely needed taking down a peg.

"And the law would be on her side. I will see to that," she snapped back as the old tome hit him in the chest. It wasn't one I recognized, but it had easily seen better years. She sat to an antique rolltop and turned on a light.

"My sire, Louis had a ghoul with a penchant for writing. She traveled with my sire wherever he went, usually keeping notes on important people they met. One of them was Mithras," she explained as she turned a page. I went over to look at the diary, but couldn't make heads or tails of the scrawled words, recognizing a few as Latin. "Mithras was the prince of London for over eight centuries, and my sire was often forced to travel there for important functions of the royalty. Unfortunately, that meant he was under the auspices of the prince, and Madeleine often recorded their interactions."

"What happened to them?" I asked, not remembering ever being told of her sire or his ghoul.

"Louis was killed by the Wehrmacht when they took control of Paris. He had tried to protect the artwork of the museum from their plundering hands and they shot him down for it. Madeleine was later killed by the Heer for rampaging in the street after losing her mind. That was why I left Paris on foot, hiding in shallow graves as we traversed to Spain to escape the Nazis. I could not even save my own artwork."

"So what does this diary say of Mithras?" Barker asked.

"Here it is," she said, sliding the diary to the side so we could read it, or at least Barker could. I had no use for the dead language.

"I have noticed my master on rare occasion return home in a rare mood of hostility," Barker read for me." On such occasion he has been with Prince Mithras, and all I can get in response is a mumbling of being fed from. Who could feed from a kindred? This thought scares me, for I have seen the power of my master move crowds in his favor. To see a kindred more powerful than he is a thought that should scare anyone.

"Third of May, Seventeen ought Seven. Tonight the Prince has come to our home. I had went to the cellar and procured a pitcher of blood from the 'cattle' there and had returned to the library to see the Prince feeding from my master. I wanted to run from the room but I felt my fears multiply until I sagged to the floor with rivers running from my eyes. It was only after the Prince had left that I was able to rise and attend my master, the fang marks of his recent feeding still evident on his neck. He has yet to rise, and I fear he may be truly dead."

"Damn," I said, thinking it was just like me and Eliza. We really had a Methuselah on the loose? Moving to No-where-ville suddenly sounded like the plan of the century.

"She goes on to say that he finally rose the next night, ravaging one of his blood dolls to death in a near frenzied state before calming down. They left London after that, sailing on a ship back to Paris."

"He would often tell me not to travel to London for fear of meeting my end there at the hands of the prince, Michele said. "He said it was the eeriest thing he'd ever experienced. To be fed from, to experience sheer pleasure and pain at once, to know that his life was mere inches away from death and there was nothing he could do to stop it. These Methuselahs, she talks about them later in the diary. It took her the better part of fifty years to uncover what Louis knew of them. They are the ultimate predator, and the power they possess is untold of when they learn the powers of other clans."

"What should I do then?" I asked her, not certain if I wanted to be close to Eliza again or not. "The way we kind of left things publicly, she's not that close to me anymore."

"What do you mean, child?" Barker asked me.

"She's going to try to get in tight with Lacroix, see if there's anything she can rip apart. When she left me earlier at the Last Round, she broke my nose as a way of signaling she wasn't going to be with the Anarchs anymore."

"You were seen, oui?" Michele asked me, looking at me with intent eyes.

"Two Nos on the rooftop nearby. Pretty sure they were Gary's boys," I told her.

"Pah," she said, standing and taking short strides in her hobble skirt to one of her high backed chairs. "That sewer rat had to vote against me on principles of beauty. At least that Nazi Mueller I can understand opposing me, as he has since my days in Paris, but that sewer rat," she spat, holding her hand as she thought over something, "That sewer rat will oppose me just because I am still beautiful."

"And I suppose Scott is still mad over that little bet about that movie remake?" Barker asked smiling.

"That 'movie remake' cost me over a hundred million to make," Michele said, shaking her head. "Just because it beat that zombie soldier film he was so proud of at the box office. And for your information, it was a prequel, not a remake. The originals did very well for themselves."

"Yeah, well," I said, trying to head off this argument before the sun came up and we all passed out arguing, "No one knew that Star Wars was going to be the hit it was. I still say it's going to make you a billion dollars."

"Time will tell, mon cher," she said, smirking. "All I needed was one more vote that night to have her on the Primogen Council, and with her Anarch tendencies she would have listened to me and me alone."

"How did you know she would side with the Anarchs?" I asked, wondering how she knew from such simple reports how Eliza would react on such a complicated issue.

"I did not," she said, frowning a bit. "I did however gather that she is a trained martial artist and knew that Nines would be in the area when she would be passing through. Letting that Sabbat pack know that their intended target would be was a simple matter with a phone call, and with Nines there to save her," she said, trailing off as I shook my head.

"You set her up to die?" I growled, ready to snap.

"No," she said, sitting up and facing me. "I set her up to shift her loyalties. From such a simple thing, she now trusts in Nines Rodriguez, even going so far as to warn him that Lacroix was about to frame him for murdering Grout. Without that small bit of trust, we might as well shift our loyalties for real because he would be dead, and there is none that can rally the city under them."

"I still don't like it," I said, sitting back on the love seat.

"As I told you when I made you, this life comes with drawbacks, my childe," Barker told me as he sat in an armchair near Michele. "Often you will need to endanger or kill in the Final Nights, and to hesitate might mean you yourself will be the victim."

"I know, sire," I growled, mad for him making me feel like a childe again that was being told some things just had to be, "But they used an anti-tank gun on the limo. She could have been killed before she ever made it downtown."

"Anti-tank gun?" Michele asked, looking between me and Barker.

"In this case, it launches an explosive designed to punch through armor and kill its occupants. The fact that she was kindred is probably the only reason she survived," I explained to her. She really needed to learn her way around military weapons. "If they had flamethrowers, they could have incinerated her where she stood."

"Which is why I'm glad the Sabbat like to make trophies of their kills," Michele said defensively. "They would take her eyes to keep her from running away, her tongue to keep her somewhat quiet and her fangs to use as trophies. Sabbat packs are nothing if not predictable."

"I think we've argued these points for long enough," Barker said as he looked at his watch. "It's already past six and the sun will rise in twenty minutes. If anyone should want me, or want to join me, I'll be in my room upstairs," he said as he stood and left the study. Remy came in as he left, with two glasses of warm blood and offered me one which I greedily took.

"Thanks, Remy," I said, drinking the warm vitae she offered. It was warm and sweet, and with a clear head, I was able to feel almost alive and warm in my skin. Returning the cup to Remy I stood and stretched. "Well Michele, I was going to head home before the sun rose, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to borrow my old room."

"Oui, mon chere," she said, standing and offering her now empty cup to Remy. "My house is always available should you need it."

"Monsieur Barker's ghoul Dianna is set to sleep in the northern bedroom and I've already prepared Mademoiselle Swan's old room," Remy said as she stood to the side, ready to assist her mistress should the need arise.

"Merci, Remy. You are very helpful," I said, thanking the ghoul who bowed before me.

"De rien, Mademoiselle Swann," she said, as I stepped past her and headed up the stairs.

Upstairs, I went into the communal bathroom and washed my makeup off my face, wanting to do that before I entered my room. That was the problem with the communal bathroom. First one there got priority, and I was just grateful that Barker didn't need it for anything. Stepping out of the bathroom and into my old bedroom, I found a platinum blonde sitting on the bed in her nightgown.

"Hello," I said, and the woman flinched. She scurried back away from me, but didn't make any sound. "Dianna, I'm not going to hurt you," I said and she seemed to shrink away as I approached. Slipping out of my heels, I stepped into the closet and put on my silk nightgown and was surprised that Dianna was still waiting on my bed.

"Sweetie, are you okay?" I asked, and she rubbed her throat as she moved her mouth. I slipped in beside her on the bed, and wrapped an arm around the petite blonde. She was shaking from fear, and I held her close as I remembered a tune my mother used to sing to me when I was scared as a little girl. I think she got it off a movie, but it always put me to sleep.

"A gentle breeze from Hushabye Mountain
Softly blows o'er Lullaby bay
It fills the sails of boats that are waiting
Waiting to sail your worries away

It isn't far to Hushabye Mountain
And your boat waits down by the quay
The winds of night, so softly are sighing
Soon they will fly your troubles to sea

So close your eyes on Hushabye Mountain
Wave goodbye, to cares of the day
And watch your boat from Hushabye Mountain
Sail far away from Lullaby Bay

So close your eyes on Hushabye Mountain
Wave goodbye, to cares of the day
And watch your boat from Hushabye Mountain
Sail far away from Lullaby Bay."

After I finished the song, Dianna was sleeping comfortably in my arms, and I let her sleep. I continued to sing songs from my childhood, keeping my tone soft to allow the newly minted ghoul a moment to sleep. I continued singing as long as I could after the sun rose, but the pull of sleep had me passing out before long and I slept with Barker's ghoul in my arms.

=o=0=o=

~Eliza Flores~

Looking at the apartment complex in the pre-dawn light now that I was supposed to be dead was somewhat eerie. I hadn't seen so much as a curtain move in the apartment her father rented for her in the ten minutes I had been standing here, and I finally decided it was safe enough. Samantha liked to go for a long run in the morning to help keep her in shape, and she usually did it in the morning when it was still cool and the traffic wasn't bad.

Stepping into the shadow of the pillar, I stepped out in the familiar confines of Samantha's one bedroom apartment. I didn't want to get caught here, because I had so few options available then; kill or ghoul her. Killing her was something I didn't think I could bring myself to do, and ghouling her seemed to be too harsh a lifestyle to force on her. Especially if it made someone lippy when they needed blood. Samantha's lifestyle as a lawyer-to-be would keep her away during the day, so if she got lippy, I was liable to see it on the news right before the sheriff's deputies came for me.

No, I needed to get my stuff while she was gone. Her running shoes were missing from beside the door, which was a good sign as I went into the hallway. I opened the door, still trying to be as quiet as I could so no one knew I was in here. I began to move things from the boxes in the bottom of the closet. I had just moved a box marked fragile off of one with my name on it when I heard Samantha speak behind me.

"If you don't get on the ground right now, I'm going to splatter your brains all over the floor."

I froze, momentarily panicked by being caught in the act of stealing multiplied by the fact that she wasn't ever supposed to see me alive. My two choices came to mind, and very carefully I stood raising my hands to show my surrender.

"I said on the ground," Samantha hissed at me, as I slowly turned around and faced her. Her face went slack as mine became visible, and the bat she held in a ready swing position fell from limp fingers to clatter on the floor.

"Liza?" she whispered, just as the sun came up high enough to start putting me to sleep. I leaned against the wall, torn between risking a violation of the Masquerade by stepping out or staying and going to sleep. I didn't get much choice in the matter, as in the next moment, Samantha ran forward in her pajamas and wrapped herself around me, hugging me tight. "You're home," she sobbed, happily crying on my shoulder as I patted her back. We rocked back and forth for several minutes, and I decided that there was no way I could keep my humanity if I forced Samantha to think I was dead again. I was going to have to figure out a way to keep her from making a big deal of my return.

"I'm home," I whispered, holding my one true friend. I could feel the sleepiness in me build, and between the wall and Samantha, it was all I could do to stay on my feet. I guess I was in this for the long haul now.

"What happened? I found your car stripped when you didn't come home and I called the police," she said, still crying as she hugged me. "Then two days later they found your purse next to that drum and they told me you were dead. I had to go the morgue to identify the body, but it wasn't you. I'm glad it wasn't you."

"How did you know it wasn't me? I heard the police confirmed it was me and the coroner closed the file."

She pulled away, bring my left hand up to hold between us, and kissed my thumb. "I don't think anyone has ever noticed this, but there's a brown streak down the center of your thumb. That other body, the nails were perfect."

I blinked at that. One fingernail was what she based her conception that I wasn't dead on? "But, I was told you delivered my eulogy," I said, stumbling like a drunk towards her bedroom. I was going to pass out soon, and I would rather make it to a bed than sleep on the floor.

"I was kind of forced to," she said, shaking her head as she lowered me to the bed. She knelt in front of me and started pulling my boots off, but I wasn't sure if she understood I was tired and wanted to sleep or if she wanted to help me change clothes. "Some of the students in your class wanted to have a wake, and I got pressed into it even though I kept telling them it wasn't your body they found. I do have a Polaroid of your headstone though. Figured you'd want it for a laugh if I ever found you. So what happened? Where did you go?"

I sighed, not sure if I wanted to tell her everything, or how much I could tell her. I decided on telling her half of it anyway, the half I could tell her. "When I came out of confession after midnight mass, I found my car stripped. I decided that I was going to walk home since it wasn't far back to campus when he showed up. His name was Simeon, and he offered me a ride."

Samantha finished pulling my boots off and sat beside me, putting an arm around me. "He kidnapped you didn't he?"

I nodded. "He took me to a warehouse, and they took me downstairs to a bed. They ripped my clothes off and, well," I said, not wanting to relive those terrible days even though they were burned into my brain forever. Samantha understood and pulled me in tighter. I knew the sun was now above the ground, and leaned heavily on my friend. "It lasted days, Sammie," I told her. "I couldn't even stay awake through it all. After, he," I said, pausing and choosing my words. I didn't want to say blood, so I opted for a word that I often used to describe my blood, "he gave me drugs, Sammie."

Samantha hugged me tighter, and I put my head on her shoulder as I was getting more and more tired. I could feel my body shutting down and needed to sleep. "It'll be okay," she said, consoling me. "We'll get you into rehab and we'll take care of you. I'll have my dad pay for everything."

I yawned as I fought off the desire to sleep. My mind started to slow down, making it harder to think. Somehow, I figured I wouldn't be able to step out through the shadows if I wanted to. "Sammie, I need to sleep, okay?" I asked her, slurring my words slightly. "But the drugs they gave me, you can't let the light touch me okay?"

"Okay, sweetie," she said, laying me back in the bed. She began stripping me of my clothes, and I fought to stay awake. I no longer had any say in what she took off as my body became limp, and soon Sammie had me laying in my birthday suit on her satin sheets.

"I mean it," I slurred, knowing I was about to slip off to sleep. "The sun will hurt me. Just cover me up and let me sleep. And don't tell anyone I'm back. I don't think I can take the strain" I said, and I felt something warm on my cheek.

"Sleep, sweetie," I heard Samantha say. "I'll make sure no one knows you're here. We'll get you counseling and rehab," I heard Samantha say as I drifted into the darkness of sleep.